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[Xaignar]

The current category system is a mess. Plus it's ugly. This is an attempt to redesign the category system into something that is easier to use.

A sketch of this can be seen here: http://users.cybercity.dk/~dsl64150/idea.png
Please forgive the crappyness of that sketch, I suck at using GIMP.
The actual tree would look similar to what is used in the statistics dialog.

Anway, onto the details.

Code: [Select]

Brief overview:
 A mix between a tree-view and a listctrl.

 The listctrl aspect is virtualy identical to the current downloadctrl.
 The tree-view aspect of the control is represented in the first column, and
 is used to split the list into three levels:
   Categories
     Files
       Sources

 This would use approximetly 20 to 40 pixels of width, but perhaps even less
 as the estimate is from a sketch made in The GIMP.

 The First level (Categories) would represent the user-changable categories,
 and the filters that might be applied to it (see below). Each category would
 require one line of space, displaying the following:
    - [(Filters: ) (Shown/Assigned)]

 An example of this could be
   Y-Rated Movies - (Filters: Not Completed) (10/11)
 
 The filters that I currently consider would be Filetype and Status, either
 including or excluding. More below.

 The next two levels, Files, would be identical to what we currently have,
 except that the tree would be moved to the front rather than being right
 before the progress bars.


 Filters:
   Global filters:
     Global filters will be accessible by dropdown menues at the place where
the category tabs are currently placed, and will allow the user to select
filters that will applied to all categories before the filters of the
specific categories.

The filters will be:
  Category -- Hide all but the select category (including Any).
  File-Type -- Hide all files but those matching the selected filetype.
  Status -- Hide all but files whoose status match the selected.

   Local filters:
 Local filters are the filters that only affect one category and which
 are changable by right-clicking on the lines containing the category
 title (kinda like the current tabs).

 The filters will include the same as the Global Filters, except the
 Category filter, which makes no sense in this context. All these filters
 can either be exclusive (hide files that match) or inclusive (show files
 that match), which allows advanced filtering like:
 (Not Completed or Stopped. Movies or Audio)

 This would first remove all files that have Status Completed or Stopped,
 and then remove all files that are not Movies or Audio.
 The order of these would be irreleveant, as
(Movies or Audio. Not Completed or Stopped)

 would produce the same result. However, for readabilit I suggest tha
 the following order is used: . .

 Note that some sainity checking is needed, since it would make no sense to
 apply filters like (Not Completed. Stopped), so the best way to implement
 it would be to allow two sets of filters:
 Filetype and Status.

 These could then be either inclusive (Movies or ...) or exclusive (Not
 Movies or ...)

 The two filters themselves chould be given the option, match both or
 match either. Which could give possibilities like:
  (Movies) or (Downloading)

 This would be quite easy to implement and give a high degree of
 flexibility.


 Advantages:
  - Using a tree-view is much more common than tabs placed at an arbitary
position.
  - Allows for much more flexible filtering, either by using the provided
capabilities or simply by hiding the un-desired categories, which would
then only take up a single line
  - Would make it much more clear that you can in fact expand the downloads to
view sources
  - Most configuration regarding the categories could be moved to the
preferences dialog, and thereby reduce the complexity of the normal
interface.


 Disadvantages:
  - Would be different from the eMule scheme (which uses tabs, though theirs
are already placed differently than ours).
  - Would require about 20-40 pixels of width (estimate).
  - Would require 1 line per category, though empty categories could be hidden
for instance.
Please comment.

[Kry]

You already know my opinion. I dont' like it at all.


One of the main disadvantages is that you lose the random access to categories. Tight now you can access any category whenever you wat. having a tree will force you to hide some categories, scroll down, whatever to access some categories.


Also the 20/40 pixels list on horizontal are overkill to me. filenames are already too long and lot of info is hidden because of the widthness of the columns.

[Xaignar]

You wont lose random access. Dont think I've ignored your complaints.
That is one of the global filters, so to view a specific category only, you just select it there.

[Jacobo221]

what's about sorting order?
when sorting by name... should it sort by filenames? categories names? categories names and inside each fileneames?
Extend this to all other sortings.

I don't dislike it at all, but I think it would make the transfers list *TOO* complicate for newbies. It will also come up with lots of sorting bugs (even more thatn the current ones :-P). The ide looks nice, even sophisticate hehe, but I think things should be kept as similiar to eMule as possible (if possible, of course).

And, ye, categories code needs to be rewritten since it's a big mess right now ;-)

P.S.: To sum up: A) I like it but... B) Complicate fo newbies C) Is bound to become too messy.

[Xaignar]

Sorting wont be a problem, however, sorting of the categories could be done in two ways: Same order as filename (alphanumeric) or by an order specified in the preferences dialog.

So it could look like this:

Code: [Select]

AAA
   A
   B
   C
 BBB
   A
   B
   Cor

Code: [Select]

BBB
   C
   B
   A
 AAA
   C
   B
   A

[Xaignar]

Ok, main complaint from Kry seems to be that he prefers the current Tab system, however it should be possible to have both (changable in Preferences). However, it would probably reduced a bit in capabilities though still mostly the same. However, switching from dropdowns to tabs would not remove the tree-view aspect.

[Jacobo221]

It's be great if both tree and tabs were suppoerted (switching through preferences).
Anyway, tabs should be kept as the default option since they are the one used at the moment and, as such, the most well-known by any user.

[Frankk]

I prefer tabs too, anyhow this new system can be useful when "all files" tab is selected, but still redundant with category colors...

[Hetfield]

i prefer tabs too, i do like emule system, let's  copy emule

[lfroen]

Just pls, don't add any data handling code into controls classes !